


Angry, & Half in Love with You

by Calesvol



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Bad Ending, Codependency, Other, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 10:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16239809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calesvol/pseuds/Calesvol
Summary: "Angry, and half in love with you, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.”- The Great Gatsy,  F. Scott Fitzgerald(Sequel to "When I Became We")





	Angry, & Half in Love with You

Warning(s): T, possible emotional abuse, suicidal ideation, suffocation

* * *

When he was a kid, he went through those phases. For the kids his age, it usually entailed horses and dinosaurs and ancient Egypt. Sometimes dragons. Eddie had definitely been a dinosaur kid. His mother, Jaime, had absolutely adored taking him to museums. And Eddie had relished in reimaging what the structured dinosaur bones suspended by metal wire and camouflaged iron poles that kept a Brontosaur’s massive chest cavity from collapsing looked like, lumbering across the forests and planes of the world of millions of years ago.

A snippet from the history books struck out to him now: tar pits. How animals would be beguiled by how innocuous they appeared, these oily pits that they would try to escape. Some were overconfident, thinking a few steps would ensure their freedom. Some rightly panicked. Regardless of what they chose, all would eventually realize the futility of it and wait to die.

It was slow, inexorable. Sometimes, it looked a helluva lot like temptation and something almost loving.

He knew. Too many times did depression make jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge look prettier than waking up next to Anne.

The high had worn off. The hero’s goblet all vigilantes got drunk of. Carlton Drake was dead, same with Riot—up in the smoke of the pyre of ambition he’d burnt himself down with. The Life Foundation had changed hands—bought and consumed by Stark Industries, no doubt. What was left? Anne had chosen Dan, and he respected her for it. A relationship with him was too fucking turbulent.

What was left? Aside from a new gig with the Daily Globe and the likelihood of moving back to the Big Apple, what was there really left to look forward to? Everything felt so bleak now that the high had worn off.

“…The hell?”

It was slurred, words bubbling in a shallow, cold puddle. Soreness seeped through his bones, ligaments burning. Wait, _burning_? In the puddle’s reflection did an inferno flicker and crackle hellishly. A whole building had been engulfed in flames as Eddie groaned softly while he staggered to stand, bowed over still like some damn colt.

 _Jim’s Corner_. Recognition of the sign carved a hollow pit in his stomach as he struggled to breathe, flickering flames dancing across his stunned expression.

“…What happened?” he asked himself aloud, the recesses of his mind suddenly filled with the Other. The Symbiote, inexorable and feathery and drenched in fire-oil. Its presence emerged like an arsonist.

**_We dealt with them. They deserved justice, right, Eddie?_ **

Oh.

Eddie staggered back against a brick wall as a rolling wall of flame belched massive plumes of smoke into the sky. The heat made him perspire, a sick realization welling as firefighters descended like hell’s angels to sloppily affix their hoses to the nearest fire hydrant and shout orders above the cacophony. A crowd was growing, several screaming about family still trapped inside. The spray of water misted the concrete below.

He'd been researching this place the night before. It had only been a short nap. Just a few hours before he’d intended on investigating the pedophile ring that was purportedly run from this place. Acting like a normal patron, pretending his fake ID would get him in. That the recorder he’d tucked in the seam of his hoodie would capture all conversation. He’d voiced a preamble hours before, explaining what he was doing. It would’ve been the story of the year, he was sure of it.

“What d’ya mean? _The fuck do you mean_?” Eddie demanded hoarsely, visibly shaken. He flinched when the ceiling of the bar heaved in, spitting fire and sparks into the street as it did.

Venom coiled restlessly in him, agitated by Eddie’s distress. Hadn’t he done what was right? He’d taken out the bad guys! Just like Eddie said he could!

Brock’s breath became stertorous as he ducked away, down the street. People gathered in throngs at the site of the disaster reflected in the smog, the clouds. Like a funeral pyre. One he should’ve been burning in. It was enough that he was alone for several blocks, Venom’s reflection visibly worried as he ignored it while passing several dark storefronts. Finally, it seemed like they were alone, banking into a alleyway illuminated only by a cut of moonlight.

“TH’ _FUCK_ DO YOU MEAN?” Eddie suddenly roared, eyes blazing as he forced the symbiote to manifest. He grappled it by the throat, fangs bared defensively. Except, it shrunk away from his anger. Blue eyes blazing, he shook his head in manic disbelief. “You call that shit _justice_?! I was going to investigate them, jackass! Deliver real justice!” He laughed dryly, glass in his throat. “Un-FUCKIN’-believable! What, you just up an’ use my body like a damn meat puppet to your own ends? And I don’t get’a damn choice. Innocent people died because of that stunt, don’t you get it?! More good people died than the baddies, you goddamn moron!”

He sobered grimly when he thought of the tar pit, of what an analogy it was. He thought of days ago when he’d fucked the goddamn thing as sweetly as he used to Anne, how he’d actually entertained the notion of it happening again.

He could see the tar pit now. And around him, the bodies of Maria and Dr. Skirth stared back in wide-eyed, dead shock. Accusingly, penetrating his soul. They’d died because of the symbiotes. And here he’d been, _fucking_ one.

 **“We didn’t mean it! We wanted to help! To do good!”** Venom decried in its defense, nebulous form undulating near Eddie, blotting out the moon. **“We killed bad people. Just like you said we could.”** With a lower, abashed amendment, it added, **“We were hungry. You forgot to feed us, Eddie.”**

Eddie clenched his jaw as he shook his head in continued disbelief, eyes shining. No matter what he did, he only kept fucking up. People were dying because of it. There wasn’t some big enemy anymore. He felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. This was his reality now. A force too chaotic for him to handle in a world that wasn’t violent enough for its tastes. His jaw set, pocketing a hand. “Say I did feed you. Say I did make sure you didn’t go hungry. Th’ fuck good will that do? You can control me in my sleep! I don’t have control of myself! You made that pretty damn clear, didn’t ya?!”

He liked it better when the worst he had to worry about were the people he dragged to the town pillory. Enemies who had heartbeats like him. Who woke up at 3 AM after some stupid dream and wondered what the hell it meant. Who loved and lived and fucked up. Not alien symbiotes. Not beings that could murder him without trying, who saw their hosts as meaty reserves when nothing else was viable and breathing. Because humans could live for so long without so many organs before they moved on, right?

“…I think you should go.”

The air fell dead and silent, Venom stock-still as it recoiled and shuddered miserably. **“What… What do you mean?”** it asked in disbelief, Eddie wincing from the sting of fear he empathetically felt. The coldness, the nausea. The clamminess that made its glossy black sheen dull and ashen to sable. **“Eddie, we thought— You—”**

“What, that jus’ ‘cause we fucked means we’re what—fuckin’ bonded or some shit? That I’m _yours_ indefinitely?” Eddie spat back, swallowing thickly, laughing through a dribble of heat catching in his throat. Tightness. He laughed mirthlessly, feeling the color drain from his face. From the innocent deaths. From Venom’s own slip into the void of abandonment that gnawed on it with fangs and poison.

Venom bobbed and shivered again, circling uncertainly **. “We’re sorry, we didn’t mean—”**

“Keep talkin’! Yeah, you keep trying to justify this fucked up shit! Make me your goddamn toy, why don’t you?!”

Even the symbiote had a tipping point. Suddenly manifested as the nine foot tall variant, fearsomely muscled and hissing acerbically, it seized him by the throat and pinned him harshly to the brick. Eddie could swear something in him broke, but it was hard to hear over the breaking of the symbiote’s heart. It was deafening, but he was too consumed in blackness and bitterness to want to care. Even though it did. Even if stinging regret burned his own.

 **“YOU TAKE THAT BACK! HOW DARE YOU QUESTION WHAT YOU MEAN TO US**!” Venom roared, hurt and anger sticking like blood, reverberating as though several people spoke at once. The anger was draining.

It was heartbreaking, but all Eddie could dwell on was the abyss his mind had fallen into. Jerking did he span his arms like a sacrifice, sagging into Venom’s throttle. “ _Do it_ ,” he hissed hoarsely, face phasing to a distant blue as he was suffocating. “Fucking do it, you goddamn coward.” His eyes blazed with death, red with a lifelong mourning, so deep and dark that Venom’s miasma faltered and its expression fell into a sobering dismay.

Eddie dropped to the ground when Venom’s vice slacked entirely, coughing violently as his throat seared with pain, eyes rimmed red with the force of his coughing and trying to recapture the wind in his lungs. Venom loomed over him, shivering but still. Collapsed on all fours, Eddie became hauntingly quiet, gaze fixed to the rocky ground.

“…Get the fuck out of my sight,” he murmured harshly, closing his eyes like a child wishing away a bad dream.

He could see the tar pit clearly now. And he was a lion, mane shaved and bald, but the blackness that clung to him receded and he picked his way from the pit despite how stained and sullied he was. He could feel the oily heaviness dispel from his bones, his blood, swept away from his flesh. The silence that hung was empty and mournful, like the wake of a freshly sealed tomb. Eddie’s hands balled into fists, smeared with dust and wet grime. His head hung, letting the familiar emptiness return.

Only, this time it ached. It stuck to him and a hollowing wind tore through the places Venom had filled, but Venom wasn’t there. Venom wasn’t them.

All that was left was Edward Charles Allan Brock, utterly alone.


End file.
